CHARACTER of HAMLET. 257 



no degree, his view ; for " he did not fet his life at a pin's fee;'' 

 but, by means of his life being preferved, to embrace the op- 

 portunities of revenge. It was from the fame foftnefs in his 

 nature, that he afterwards drove to make himfelf believe, that 

 his father's ghoft might be the devil trying to " abufe him ;" 

 and which^v.ggefted to him the ftratagem of getting a play to 

 be performed before the king. 



His anxious adherence to the project of counterfeiting mad- 

 nefs, to which he made every thing elfe give way, explains his 

 rudenefs, as Dr Johnson calls it, to Ophelia ; for to deceive 

 the beloved Ophelia into a belief of his madnefs, and to in- 

 fuk he)-, was the fureft of all means to make it believed that he 

 was really mad. And this alfo accounts for his making her 

 brother Laertes believe, that the rough treatment he gave 

 him at his lifter's funeral, proceeded not from love to Ophelia, 

 its true caufe, but from diftradtion ; and which is ridiculoufly 

 called by Dr Johnson, a '* falfehood unfuitable to the charac- 

 " ter of a good or a brave man." Hamlet was then in the 

 very prefence of the ufurper, and, on that account, induftrioxifly 

 " proclaimed," that what he had done, proceeded from madnefs. 



Connected with this point, it has been thought vain by 

 fome critics *, to juftify Shakespeare in his making Hamlet 

 forget (as they think) Ophelia fo foon after her death ; in- 

 ftead of which, he fhould have waited, they fay, for the eftedl 

 which time has upon the change of feeling ; and Dr Johnson 

 has remarked that " time toiled after him in vain." But I 

 lliould apprehend that this is entirely to miftake the charadter. 

 Time toils after every great man, as well as after Shakespeare. 

 The workings of an ordinary mind keep pace indeed with time ; 

 they move no fafter ; they have their beginning, their middle, and 

 their end ; but fuperior natures can reduce thefe into a point. 

 They do not indeed fupprefs them ; but they fufpend, or they lock 



Vol. II. K k them 



* \firror, &c. 



